Steeped in Blood (34 page)

Mr Louw was a happy man – Sanlam injected R343 961 into his investment, placing him in the same position in which he would have been had these fraudulent switches not taken place.

Also interesting was that I found out during my investigation that the broker who had sold Louw the investment, Van Eeden, had been arrested for fraud at a South African airport in April 2003 while trying to flee the country with his family. Sanlam did not disclose this to me when I called them the first time.

It is the dirty dealings in the above cases that I find so interesting. Certain companies happily seem to gamble with people’s money, dressing their business up with fancy advertisements, smartly clothed employees and, often, false promises. One needs reminding of what Ambrose Bierce, a famous American columnist, wrote about business: ‘The gambling known as business looks with austere disfavour upon the business known as gambling.’ You have to be careful when dealing with these big companies, especially when it comes to your money. They are quick to take
your savings but very slow to rectify any damage they do, even if it loses you money. My approach does not make me a favourite among these large companies – but then again, you can’t make friends with everybody in the world.

‘The time will therefore come when the sun will shine only on free men who know no other master but their reason.’

– MARQUIS DE CONDORCET,

French philosopher, mathematician and political scientist

There are times when the facts seem to be too obvious. It is easy to jump to conclusions based on incorrect data or the sway of a specific context. On occasion, people’s lives hang in the balance, thus the correct investigation and interpretation of facts is imperative. One such case in which I was involved was the matter of the insecticide and the sangoma.

In the late 1990s I was enlisted by Legal Aid, which was acting on behalf of a sangoma who lived in the then Western Transvaal. The sangoma was about to be found guilty of murder, and, to the attorney’s credit, he felt that something might be amiss.

An elderly man had been ill and went to consult a doctor. He was diagnosed with pneumonia and prescribed tetracycline, a broadspectrum antibiotic, which he duly took. Not feeling any better, he decided to consult the local sangoma, who mixed him a potion that, she said, would heal him. On his way out, the man said that he was
thirsty and asked the sangoma for something to drink. She filled an empty two-litre Coca-Cola bottle with water and gave it to him, and he drank it. The old man died later that afternoon.

His family was very distressed. They contacted the police, who took possession of the Coke bottle for analysis. At the post-mortem, they found minute quantities of organophosphate insecticide both in the Coke bottle and in the body. The sangoma was charged with murder. By the time I was called in, the state and defence had already closed their cases and were awaiting judgment and sentencing.

I looked at the facts and realised that the organophosphates could never have been the cause of death. We knew that in order to be lethal, a gram of that particular organophosphate would have to be consumed, and also that the chemical has a foul smell. If the old man had consumed a whole gram, he definitely would have noticed the odour. Calculating the amount of the substance found in his body, we realised that it was at least 5 000 times less than what would have been needed to kill him. We went to court just as sentence was about to be passed.

The magistrate was grumpy, as he wanted the case closed. The sangoma’s attorney argued the matter, however, and persuaded the magistrate to reopen the case. After I’d presented my evidence, the prosecutor stood up to cross-examine me. As luck would have it, both the prosecutor and the magistrate were keen gardeners, so as soon as I mentioned the trade name of the organophosphate, they recognised it, and were aware of the foul smell that it emits. They knew that one could never make a man drink enough of it to kill him. The case turned around by 180 degrees, and the sangoma walked out a free woman.

The truth was that the old man had died of pneumonia, which can kill old and young people very quickly if not properly treated. He had had fluid in his lungs, which is symptomatic of organophosphates, but also of pneumonia. During the post-mortem, the state had jumped to a conclusion without examining any further.

Ironically, one of the problems with modern forensic science is that the equipment is so sensitive that it can detect traces of elements that could not possibly have a physiological affect, yet they are nevertheless present.

This is often a problem in the horse-racing industry, where, every now and then, a horse tests positive for a drug that could have been obtained naturally. Stinkblaar (
Datura stramonium
), for example, is a big problem, as it contains scopolamine, an alkaloid drug. It is sometimes found in animal feed. If a horse inadvertently eats a few leaves, the drug can be detected in the horse’s system and the owner will be charged.

Another problem can occur in athletics, where all kinds of drugs can be detected in quantities far below their ability to affect sporting performance. If you eat a roll with poppy seeds sprinkled on top, for instance, the instruments will detect the opiates in these seeds despite the fact that they cannot affect you in any way. Because of the sensitivity of today’s equipment, the
interpretation
of results is critical.

The importance of the accurate interpretation of test results was illustrated in another case on which I worked, in Willowmore, in 1998. A farmer’s house had burnt down, and the attorney representing the farmer called me in. Finding my fee to be too high, he sourced another forensic scientist to work on the matter. The scientist concluded that it was a case of arson and switched sides to work for the insurance company.

The farmer then employed me, and with a new legal team, we sued the insurance company in an effort to get them to pay the claim. I examined the facts and concluded that the problem was that the analyst working for the insurance company had seen a run mark outside the window. Analysis showed the substance to contain toluene, which is present in petrol. Based on this, he came to the conclusion that the farmer had doused the house with petrol and set it alight.

Petrol, however, contains toluene as well as many other substances. The sample contained
only
toluene. What the analyst hadn’t realised was that there were a number of foam mattresses in the house, and that when these burnt, toluene was produced. The reason for this is that the mattresses were made of polyurethane, which is a combination of toluene and isocyanurate, among other things. When the mattresses burnt, they produced toluene in a thick, gooey consistency. This is what had run out of the windows.

In this case, the full impact of the chemistry results and fire patterns were not taken into account, and quick – incorrect – conclusions were reached. The use of analytical tools is wonderful, but they must be used with care when interpreting results. If the forensic scientist fails to do so, he or she creates scope for glaring errors.

Many years ago, I worked on a case involving Mandrax, in which the analysis of the samples was just too good to be true – all seven samples were identical. I have conducted many analyses over the years, so experience taught me to question the result – most people would simply have accepted it. It turned out that the analyst had run the laboratory test seven times on the same sample instead of testing seven different samples (see
graphs
).

Sometimes, even the most innocent of comments can lead to people reaching the wrong conclusions. In 1997, I worked on a pyroforensics case near Kimberley. One night, the owner of a hotel woke up to flames and smoke – his hotel was ablaze. He called the fire brigade, and they excitedly rushed to the scene – they were operating on a voluntary basis and were thrilled to have a real-life fire to put out.

At some point, for reasons unknown, the owner of the hotel went to the head of the fire brigade and said, ‘Listen, chaps, here’s R1 000 each, now bugger off home.’ The head of the fire brigade was offended that he should be asked to give up the one good opportunity of putting out a fire. Instead of taking the R1 000, he
refused it and reported the incident to the insurance company, who promptly repudiated the hotel owner’s claim.

My involvement came some two years later, when I acted on behalf of the hotel owner. An analytical chemist with very limited expertise in forensic chemistry had been called in to investigate the fire. On analysis, he had found traces of lead in the samples he had scratched out of the flooring, off the walls and from underneath the skirting boards. He drew the conclusion that, since petrol contains lead, the presence of lead in the sample meant that petrol must have been used to start the fire. He failed to understand that the lead in petrol is a very specific, organic kind of lead: it is either tetraethyl or tetramethyl lead rather than plain lead. Petrol was only one of the possibilities that would give rise to the presence of lead in the debris of this particular fire.

I was briefed to appear as a witness for the plaintiff, but this was not ultimately necessary, as counsel cross-examined the expert to such an extent that he conceded the point that there were twenty or thirty different sources to which the lead found in the debris could be attributed – for instance pewter, solder, some printing inks or even paint, which, in the old days, contained an oxide of lead. The expert failed to demonstrate that the lead he had identified was tetraethyl or tetramethyl lead, which meant that he could not say whether or not the lead in the fire had come from petrol. His conclusion, therefore, was erroneous.

Just before counsel posed the last question to the witness, court proceedings closed for the day. The next morning, as we started in court at nine o’clock, counsel posed the final question to the witness: ‘Sir, of the thirteen conclusions that you drew yesterday in your expert summary, are there any to which you wish to adhere?’

‘No,’ replied the expert. (Counsel in this matter was Henri Viljoen, who will appear later in this book.)

The insurance claim was paid out and the owner of the hotel left court without a blemish on his character.

Whether it is a case of life or death, or something less dramatic, it is vital to make sure that your results are seen in the right context. Jumping to easy conclusions can prevent you from getting as close to the truth as possible and can seriously pervert the course of justice.

Justice was well served in a case on which I worked a few years ago, in which I acted as an assessor. In January 2003, a train collision occurred between the Muldersvlei and Kraaifontein train stations in the Western Cape, resulting in the death of ten commuters. The train driver, Mervyn Matthee, was charged with culpable homicide. It was a frightening accident: it was alleged that Matthee had been negligent, as he had not stopped at three red-light signals between the two stations. The brakes on the train had been in perfect working order.

The magistrate wanted someone to assist her with the technical aspects of the case, and I was approached to fill that role.

Matthee was a man in his sixties whose wife had died from cancer some eighteen months previously. He had never really recovered from her death, and was having regressions and blackouts. It transpired at the trial that he was depressed and had sought help from his employer, but they had offered little sympathy or support. In fact, their approach to him had been uncaring and callous.

It was a fact that Matthee had driven the train and caused the accident. I wanted to know more about his state of mind, however, so I posed a number of questions relating to this from the bench. The state brought in a psychiatrist, and I asked him whether it was possible that Matthee could have serious disassociative conditions resulting from the loss of his wife – in other words, times when he could be cognitively disassociated from the reality around him. The psychiatrist replied in the affirmative, saying that this was common. I also wanted to find out if it was possible for Matthee to be unaware of this condition. According to the psychiatrist, the train driver could have been completely oblivious to it.

In order to commit a crime, a person must have been negligent or must have
mens rea
– the guilty mind, or the knowledge of wrongdoing that constitutes part of a crime. If you are unaware of your state of mind and the consequent danger in operating machinery, you cannot be held liable. The state was not happy with this line of questioning, and a second psychiatrist, who was even easier to question, was brought in.

Matthee was acquitted largely because the case was founded in sand. He was not a well person, and justice was served.

Since the answers are not always obvious or easy to establish in my line of work, an innovative approach is sometimes needed. This was key in a case I handled in 2010, when a badly burnt-out car and body were found. An insurance claim of around R20 million was at stake, and I was called in to determine whether the body belonged to the person whose life was insured.